David Perdue and ‘ugly American eyes’

If you’re David Perdue, the first-time GOP candidate and well-traveled business executive running for U.S. Senate, you have to be wondering if politics has its own, very separate language – something wholly apart from English.

In yet another, recent interview with the editorial board of the Macon Telegraph, Perdue is in the middle of a bull session on world economics, when the topic of China comes up. The newspaper has kindly posted the sound.

Perdue: “This is a culture that thinks thousands of years [ahead]. Guanxi is a term over there. It’s called relationship, friendship. This isn’t like you and I just met and we go to dinner, we’re friends. They’re talking about families, generations, centuries. I’ve had that rice paddy, you’ve had that rice paddy, my grandfather – that’s guanxi.

“When they talk about friendship, that’s what they mean. The answer is, of course, we’ve been naïve. We see the world through the ugly American eyes – and that is, the world revolves around New York City or Washington D.C."

Unidentified interviewer: “We’re arrogant teenagers.”

guanxi

Perdue: “Absolutely. And you know what? The rest of the world gets it. My friends in India, right now – I spent a lot of time in India – my friends in India, my age, are really, really angry. And they’re angry because they feel they’re subsidizing our artificially high standard of living. They can’t borrow a third of what they’re spending. But we get away with it, because we’re the dollar – we’re the $16 trillion-a-year economy….”

And so the campaign of GOP rival Jack Kingston, using former candidate Karen Handel as its bulldog, pounced. From the press release:

“David Perdue just can’t seem to keep his arrogance in check,” said Handel. “First, he belittles Georgians who don’t have a four-year college degree and haven’t lived overseas. Then, he patronizes the grassroots core of the GOP. Now, he’s insulting Americans in general.”

But politics wouldn’t be politics if there wasn’t a comparison to that fellow in the White House. Continues Handel:

“David’s comments remind me of Michelle Obama’s absurd statement made after her husband’s election that it was the first time in her adult life that she felt proud to be an American….”

The court chose Mark F. Dehler of Hiawassee. Dehler is a longtime attorney married to Cathy Cox, a former Democratic secretary of state and gubernatorial candidate who is now president of Young Harris College.

If Democrat Jason Carter feels like he’s got a two-ton weight on his chest, we think we’ve found the cause: The Republican Governors Association reports that it has spent $1.5 million in support of incumbent Gov. Nathan Deal. Most of the cash has been spent on the purchase of TV time.

The GOP also linked to a passionate defense by talk show host Erick Erickson, who compared the tactic to the strategy employed by Democrats a decade ago in challenging President George W. Bush. Said Erickson:

"This is what the Democrats did in 2004 and it didn't work against George W. Bush. Every glimmer of hope economically, they attacked. Every sign of progress in Iraq, they attacked. Everything they did, they attacked."

Hmmm. This is an interesting strategy. You have to wonder if Republicans might consider using it against the current president.

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The Real Deal vs. The Deal - Real. Gov. Nathan Deal received a notable visitor after throwing out the first pitch at last night's Braves game.

No word on whether a trademark lawsuit is soon to come. But we hear the governor got an earful.

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The Georgia Department of Public Health reminds us of another important law that took effect with the first of July. The sale or distribution of electronic cigarettes to anyone under 18 is now illegal.

It comes amid a spike of potentially dangerous exposures to e-cigarette emissions, which contain chemicals that include formaldehyde. The department said in 2011, it received five calls involving e-cigs. In the last six months, it received 46.

Blogger Charles C. Johnson of GotNews.com is reporting that Stevie Fielder says the Cochran campaign told him to offer black voters in the Meridian area $15 each to vote for Cochran in the June 24 GOP primary runoff against state Sen. Chris McDaniel.

"It comes from a blogger who in the last 24 hours has accused a Mississippi public official of being responsible for an individual's death and had to retract other outlandish accusations regarding another Mississippi elected official," Russell said. "The author of this article admits he paid his source for the story."

Amid rising concern over a surge of young immigrants crossing the border illegally, flag-waving protesters blocked three busloads of detainees in Riverside County on Tuesday, preventing them from reaching a Border Patrol processing station in Murrieta.

The buses, carrying about 140 detainees, turned around and headed back to a San Diego-area Border Patrol facility.

Police said about 100 to 150 people met the buses a few blocks away from the Border Patrol station, chanting "Go home" and "We want to be safe." ...

Clearly, there's demand for more bullets. So why haven't manufacturers expanded to meet that demand? Leaving aside conspiracy theories about massive DHS bullet purchases (which even pro-gun Breitbart.com found to be untrue), the answer seems to be that manufacturers know it's not just new interest in sport-shooting that's driving the ammo-buying. The gun industry has acknowledged that politics drive gun-buying.

Knowing that, manufacturers are reluctant to invest in lots of expensive new facilities when they're afraid the political mania could vanish at any moment. But as Guns and Ammo reported last year, America's ammunition manufacturers have been operating at or near capacity for a decade, and reluctant to boost that capacity. And that capacity is finally starting to creep upward — Remington finally last year broke ground on a new ammunition plant in Arkansas.